In the nation spirited fight against COVID-19, contributions to Government by deducting monthly salaries of employees a good step or not?
The author of this write up is Vishakha Pandey a lawyer and Kamla Nehru Institute of Physical and social sciences ( law faculty), Sultanpur. Currently she is also working as a sub-editor in Droit Penale News Head.
COVID-19 is now declared a pandemic, and has been quoted as the most challenging crisis since World War2 by United Nations Chief, Antonio Guterres. Nationwide lockdown and ban on the imports and exports have been causing continuous damage to government savings, and it will last until this disaster is resolved. For this, it is important to keep government expenditures minimum.
To fight the economic damage caused by
novel Corona-virus, Central Government has taken various impressive steps to
ensure the layman’s suffering is kept at a minimum.
For Consumer: -
·
Free
Food and Fuel: - 80
crores poor people will get 5 kilograms wheat or rice and 1-kilogram pulses
every month from April to June; 8 crores families to get free cooking gas.
·
Cash
Transfers: - Twenty
crores women with a basic bank account will get rupees 500 a month until June;
three crores senior citizens, widows and disabled people will get Rs. 1,000;
and 87 million farmers will be paid immediately Rs. 2000 under an existing
program.
·
Insurance: - 22 lakhs health workers fighting
CVID-19 will get an insurance cover of Rs. 50 lakhs.
·
Jobs
and Wages: - For people
earning less than Rs. 15,000 a month, the government will pay 24% of their monthly
wages that feed into pension and provident fund accounts; Wages under job guarantee
program increased to provide an annual benefit of Rs. 2,000 to a worker.
With the data given, we must understand
how diverting funding is of the utmost priority right now.
In India, the current GDP is estimated
at 3.2 lakh crores and out of which 8.15% is used only to pay salaries,
pensions, and allowances to government employees. Whereas, 3.3% is spent on
education, 1.3% on healthcare (India ranks 141/190 by W.H.O in health
expenditure per capita) and around 1.56% spent on defense.
Taking note of the huge chunk of GDP
going to salaries, The Union Cabinet on April 6th approved an ordinance to cut salaries of the Prime Minister and also all the ministers and
sitting MPs by 30% for 1 year in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, they also
decided to suspend the MP Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) for 2 years.
These twin moves will release Rs. 7,900 crores to combat the disease. President
Ramnath Kovind, Vice- President Venkaiah Naidu and governors of states have
also voluntarily offered to take the 30% pay cut as a social responsibility.
State Governments are also encouraging
voluntarily cutting off their salaries. The Maharashtra Government will be
taking 60% deductions in their salaries, while class A to B employees will get
a 50% cut. There will be no salary deductions for class D staff. In a similar
move, Telangana Chief Minister K
CHANDRASEKHAR RAO has announced that his salary would be cut by 75% and
that state ministers and MLAs will also face a three- fourth salary cut off. These moves are not only intended as an
austerity measure, it reflects the thinking in government that the political the class should signal that it is not standing apart from the economic hardship
caused to the common people of India and also motivate them to have faith in
the Government functioning.
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